


An Unlikely Balm

by MsBarrows



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Post Game, Prompt Fic, Romance, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBarrows/pseuds/MsBarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Started out as a single prompt on Tumblr for a broken!Anders and Fenris being an unlikely balm, and appears to be growing into a prompt series. First two chapters were originally published in my "In the Maker's Light" ficlet collection but have now been moved to here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unlikely Balm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cypheroftyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypheroftyr/gifts).



Fenris had not thought to ever see the mage again, after they'd all parted ways in the wake of events in Kirkwall. Apparently the Maker had other ideas, however – and a cruel sense of humour – for he came across him again some eight months later, in a street market in Lydes.

He had not even recognized the mage at first, merely stepped aside out of the road as a group of templars walked by, leading a short coffle of men and women, captured apostates mainly, an increasingly common sight as the templars cracked down with especial vigour on all mages, apostate or otherwise. It had only been the height of the man and the unusual amount of restraints on him that drew his attention to the emaciated figure stumbling along at the end of the coffle; not just the collar and hobbles that all of the prisoners wore, but also a set of branks strapped around his head, and his hands locked into cuffs at either end of a heavy iron bar that was welded to the back of the collar. Even then he had not recognized the mage; not until the last minute, as the man walked by, when his glance met familiar honey-brown eyes for a brief moment. Eyes in which there was not the slightest recognition, just the blank stare of a trapped and suffering creature.

Fenris might have hardened his nerves and ignored him even then, had even resumed walking, intending to do just that - but he glanced back after a few steps, and saw the bloody stripes that criss-crossed Anders' back and upper thighs, disappearing beneath the filthy rag of a loincloth that was all the clothing the man wore. Saw the bruises standing out dark against the prison pallor of the mage's skin. Marks of fists. Marks of fingers. Signs of abuse he would have been hard-put to wish on even his worst enemy, much less a man who'd once been a companion, even if not quite what he'd call a friend.

He stood there for several long moments, there in the sun-lit street, and then finally cursed tiredly, and turned back, following in the wake of the templars and their prisoners, already wondering just how he was going to rescue the damned mage.

* * *

It took him more time, bloodshed and bribes than he liked, but three days of considerable effort later saw him crouched in a ruined cottage high on a hillside halfway to Jader, undoing the straps holding the branks in place as gently as he could. Bloody spittle drooled down Anders' chin as Fenris carefully manoeuvred the spiked gag out of his mouth; the mage seemed not to notice it, nor care. He didn't seem to notice anything; he'd just stood there silently while his templar escort was killed, the other mages set free and urged to flee. He had come along without resistance when Fenris lifted the end of the chain still attached to the collar around his neck and led him off from the scene of carnage. He had said not a word in the several hours of travel it had taken for them to get far enough away that Fenris felt it safe to stop long enough to free him from his multitude of restraints, he'd just followed along on his chain like a horse on a lead rein, or a dog on its leash.

He didn't react at all as Fenris freed his hands, removed his collar, and took off the cuffs from around his ankles, all that remained of the hobbles. Didn't even react when Fenris called his name, when he touched his face, when he slapped him, hoping for any reaction at all.

Nothing. As empty as a long-abandoned house.

Fenris let the two of them rest for a few hours, then as the sun began to lighten the sky he roused the mage. Anders ate, at least, when food was put in his hand, and drank when a cup was held to his lips, but otherwise was as silent and still as one already dead. By the time the sun rose they were on the road again, Anders now dressed in sandals, leggings and smocked tunic like any peasant might wear, Fenris stalking along at his side, ill at ease and wanting only to get out of Orlais, and into Ferelden, where templars were much less tolerated since the Blight Year. There was a Grey Warden outpost somewhere there, he recalled, and Anders was at least technically a member of it; he would take the mage to them, he decided, more of a rescue than the man was owed.

It was days before Anders showed any sign of awareness, a slight frown crossing his face as he looked at Fenris one day when they were stopped to each lunch somewhere in the mountains southeast of Jader. Just the briefest of expressions, there and gone again, but it gave Fenris hope that perhaps the mage was not entirely broken. Anders began watching his footing on the steep trail by himself after that, instead of needing to be constantly watched, constantly guided – a relief for Fenris, considering how much rough, high trails they had yet to traverse.

They were making their way down from Gerlen's Pass to Lake Calenhad a few days later when the mage finally showed a real sign of returning awareness; "Fenris," he said, just once, just the name, and then fell silent again. But he was looking around more often after that, like a man slowly awakening from sleep. Or a nightmare; more likely that than any pleasant dream.

When they reached the lake the next day Fenris set camp, though it was only mid-afternoon yet. Days of constant travel had taken its toll on both of them, though as poor condition as Anders had been in when their trek had started, his health had actually improved compared to at the start of it, his lean form looking not quite as distressingly gaunt any longer. But they were both tired, and sore, and they reeked, Anders even worse than Fenris did. Here there was a gently shelving beach and a good clean lake, with plenty of driftwood for a fire. It was with considerable relief – and a certain amount of self-consciousness – that Fenris dug soap and a washcloth out of his pack, stripped out of his gear, and ordered the mage to do the same.

He was washing Anders – the mage having shown no inclination to do anything more than sit motionless in the shallows and stare out over the lake – when Anders' eyes slowly tracked over to his face, a faint frown furrowing his brow.

"Fenris?" he said, sounding puzzled. Puzzled, lost... uncertain. But aware again, however briefly.

"Yes," Fenris said, quietly.

The mage lifted a hand, touched his arm gingerly, as if expecting him to vanish, then his face. Fenris paused in his ablutions and sat quietly, tolerating the mage's touch.

Anders swallowed thickly, looked around. "This is Ferelden," he said.

"Yes."

"How...?"

"All I know is that I rescued you from templars two... no, closer to three weeks ago now. How you came to be in their hands... you tell me. What happened? I thought you were with Hawke?"

Anders just sat starring at him for a while, as if trying to make sense of Fenris' words. His expression was blank again. "They killed her," was all the mage managed to finally say, voice flat and empty, and then his expression shattered, showing only terrible pain, and he was crying, great heartbroken sobs, all tears and snot and gasping breaths, shuddering and wrapping up in his own arms as if he was shaking apart and trying to hold himself together all at once.

There was nothing Fenris could do; nothing but gingerly put his arms around the devastated mage, and hold him while he wept. When it became clear that the tears were not ending any time soon, he rinsed Anders off as best he could, and helped him to his feet, half-carrying him out of the lake. He wrapped him in blankets, and held him, until the mage finally fell silent again, having cried himself to sleep.

A good sign, he thought, once the storm of tears had passed; Anders was still in there somewhere.


	2. Change of Circumstances

Fenris woke with a pounding headache, a growling stomach, a foul taste in his mouth, and vague memories of unsettling nightmares. He was lying in a cot in what what looked like an infirmary of some kind, one of a row of such. Anders was stretched out asleep in the cot to his left. There was a man sitting in a chair nearby, his feet up on the vacant cot to Fenris' right, working on something in his lap; braiding a bowstring, it looked like. The man glanced up, and smiled slightly when he saw that Fenris was awake, straightening up and putting down the unfinished bowstring.

Fenris frowned. "I know you, don't I?" he asked. "We've met before."

"Yes. You were with Hawke when she rescued me from the Deep Roads near Kirkwall a year or two back. I'm Nathaniel Howe, and you're Fenris, if I'm remembering correctly?"

"Yes, I am. How did I get here? What happened?"

Nathaniel frowned slightly. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I... I'm not sure. There was a fight; Anders and I were attacked by darkspawn. We won, and then we kept on travelling, and... I don't remember what happened after that," Fenris said worriedly.

The Grey Warden nodded. "That's right. You almost died; one of our patrols came across the two of you. Anders had managed to keep you healed enough to keep you alive, but..." he broke off, then sighed. "You were tainted. Dying."

Fenris frowned. "But I'm well now."

"Yes. Sometimes, if it's not too late, we can perform the joining – the ceremony that makes someone a Grey Warden. And if they're lucky, they survive the taint. You were lucky."

Fenris blinked, then let his head drop back to the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm a Grey Warden now?" he asked quietly, feeling mainly a sense of disbelief at the words.

"Yes. I'm sorry – it was try the joining, or let you die."

Fenris nodded, then turned his head to study Anders' sleeping face. "How is the mage?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could tell us," Nathaniel said. "He hasn't spoken since we found the pair of you. What happened to him?"

"I'm not sure, myself," Fenris said, and told the man what little he knew – of seeing the mage in templar custody, of the rescue, of the long trek from Orlais east to Ferelden. "He told me they killed Hawke," Fenris finished softly, still studying the sleeping man. "He didn't say how, or where, or when; he hasn't spoken again since, except to shout a warning right before the darkspawn swarmed us."

Nathaniel rose to his feet, and walked over to stand over the sleeping mage, frowning down at him. "Poor bastard," he said softly, then bent down to touch the back of his hand to Anders' cheek. The mage stirred but didn't wake. Nathaniel straightened up again then turned and gave Fenris a crooked smile. "I expect you're feeling more than a little hungry right now?"

"Yes," Fenris agreed, flushing as his stomach made a loud growling noise of agreement.

"That's normal for Grey Wardens, especially freshly joined ones," Nathaniel told him. "Come on... we can talk just as easily in the dining hall as here. I expect you've got a lot of questions. And then we'll have to see to getting you properly settled in as a recruit; a room, official armour and so forth."

Fenris grimaced as he rolled over and sat up. "I don't suppose we can just ignore that fact that you had to turn me into a warden to save me?" he asked.

Nathaniel grinned. "Afraid not. But don't worry – it's not as bad as it sounds," he said, and offered Fenris a hand. "At least there's not a blight on right now, anyway."

Fenris eyed his hand warily for a moment, then took it and allowed Nathaniel to help him to his feet. "Thank you," he said gravely. "Even if I don't seem particularly grateful at the moment. I do appreciate the still being alive part of things, even if I'm not yet sure just how I feel about the idea of being a Grey Warden."

"No problem. I wasn't particularly grateful when it was done to me, either. You'll get used to it," the other man said cheerfully, took a final look at the still-sleeping mage, and then led Fenris off in the direction of food to fill his empty belly.


	3. Trust Me

Fenris was, to his surprise, enjoying this new life as a Grey Warden, even if it had been no choice of his own to join the order. The other wardens were not overly inquisitive about his past – many of them having pasts they were no more interested in discussing than he was – and cared more about his ability to fight than about his race, or his appearance. They were a close-knit group, even more so than Hawke's companions had been, and yet they easily accepted him as one of them.

It perplexed him at first, until he became consciously aware of the odd tug of feeling that told him whenever other wardens were near, a thread of sensation saying _that way_ , the nearly subliminal awareness of the bond of blood that joined them. It startled him when he first noticed it, and then for a while he felt _too_ conscious of it, a nagging sensation like being lightly touched by phantom fingers over and over again. And then it faded from notice unless he was consciously thinking of it, just a warm comforting feeling whenever he was in the presence of the other wardens. A feeling of being one-of-many, of being where he _should_ be, no matter what conscious, logical thought said.

He was intrigued when he realized he could tell wardens apart even when they were out of sight; the feeling of them was different-but-the-same from person to person. They talked about it once over dinner, when he hesitantly asked about it, about how everyone had a different feel or flavour.

"I hear sounds," Velanna said. "A different tone for each person, from deep rumbles to a high-pitched whine."

"I won't ask who the whine is," said Nathaniel with an amused smile, making them all laugh. "It's more like a feeling of touch for me – like brushing up against a swatch of fabric; fur, or velvet, or leather, sometimes less pleasant things."

"Like everyone is a different drink," Oghren said, perhaps predictably.

"A sort of sweet burnt taste, like everyone is overdone toast, but each piece is spread with a different jam," Sigrun contributed.

"It's smell, for me," Fenris admitted, glancing around the table. "Sharp scents, mostly – pine needles, or mint leaves. Ozone," he added, glancing at where Anders sat silently beside him, eyes unfocused, steadily eating his portion of food but otherwise unresponsive.

The mage still followed him everywhere, as if following Fenris was the only thing that still made sense to him in whatever place it was his mind had withdrawn to. He rarely responded to anything said to him, or to events around them, just tagged along in Fenris' footsteps like a shadow, or a ghost.

It hurt those who had known him long ago, Fenris could see – the blank stare he turned on Nathaniel, his lack of response to Sigrun's cheerful greetings, his failure to react at all to Oghren's coarse jokes, to Velanna's snipey comments, to the Warden-Commander's orders or his elven friend's flirting. Not even a rebuff, which they might have been able to deal with, but instead a complete lack of response, as if they didn't even exist.

* * *

Out of necessity he and the mage had been assigned a room together, two narrow beds in a small stone-walled room, the floor cold in the mornings with the oncoming Ferelden winter, but the beds were thickly piled with blankets and furs to offset it. It startled him the first time he woke to find the mage perched on the edge of his bed, watching him sleep. "Anders?" he said. The mage didn't respond, just sat there, saying nothing. He was shivering from the chill night air, Fenris realized after a moment. "Go back to bed," he said quietly, and to his surprise the mage did.

Anders was back the next night, and most nights after that, seemingly waking at some point in the night and coming to sit on Fenris' bed. He woke, once, to find the mage stretched out asleep beside him on top of the covers, cheeks tracked with tears. He didn't have the heart to wake him and send him away, and instead lay there sleepless for several hours, watching Anders' sleeping face, watching ghosts of expressions chasing over it as the mage dreamt. Not pleasant dreams, he suspected, by the way the mage jerked and moaned at one point, by the lines of grief that showed briefly on his face.

He startled awake one night, his tattoos flaring to brilliance, and found Anders lying awake beside him, one fingertip tracing his lyrium lines with a feather-light touch. The mage's eyes focused on him briefly, momentarily bright with awareness and _there_ , and then his hand dropped back to the bedding, eyes going flat and empty again. "Anders?" he said, but the mage didn't respond at all, just lay there blank-eyed. Fenris lay there, watching him, then after a while reached out hesitantly, touching his own fingertips lightly to the mage's cheek. "Anders?" he asked again, softly. Anders sighed, softly, then nuzzled against the bedding, his eyes drifting closed, his face relaxing in sleep.

Fenris had been there a month before he was taken along on patrol. Anders came along too, though officially he was still listed as sick, not on active duty. The mage paused and trembled for a while when they reached an entrance to the Deep Roads, but followed them when they went down inside, still sticking close to Fenris.

Darkspawn, Fenris decided, once they came close enough to some for him to sense them, were like rot and corruption, a foul odour in his metaphorical nose. He killed them gladly, enjoying the feeling of fighting once more, his blade moving easily in his hands as he chopped them down. He was only mildly surprised when Anders joined in, fighting as smoothly and powerfully at Fenris' back as he ever had, fire and lightning and freezing spells dealing damage to the darkspawn, occasional bursts of healing energy helping the wardens.

The mage was as silent and withdrawn afterwards as before, his eyes still shuttered, whatever had momentarily brought him back going quiescent again with the deaths of the darkspawn.

"I wonder if he'll ever recover from whatever it was that happened; whatever it was he saw, or was done to him," Fenris said quietly, as he sat cleaning his blade by the fire that night, Nathaniel sitting nearby repairing the fletching of some damaged arrows.

"Maybe," Nathaniel said, frowning grimly, pausing in his work to study the mage as well. "Do you mind, that you're stuck looking after him while he recovers?"

Fenris studied the motionless mage for a while. "No," he eventually said.

* * *

Anders sometimes showed interest in his surroundings now, watching the other wardens with a slight frown on his face, or an even fainter smile. He helped, a little, when they were setting up camp while travelling on patrol; gathering a few sticks of wood for the fire, or sitting and turning a spitted rabbit so it would cook evenly, or stirring a pot so it wouldn't stick and scorch. Minor things, yes, but a major change from his previous completely detached behaviour. The others had grown used to his silent presence now, and adapted to it. Velanna rarely spoke to him; she found his presence unsettling. Nathaniel would often sit near him while working on minor tasks – repairing his armour, fletching arrows, and the like – sometimes talking softly, but mostly as silent as the mage. Sigrun sometimes sought Anders out too, and would sit with him, talking to him, telling him stories, about things she'd recently seen and done, while she polished her amour, or sharpened her axe, or the wicked razor-sharp hook that had replaced her left hand after an ogre had bitten it clean off.

Fenris was used to the mage's silent company now, used to that faint tug on his senses that said the mage was near, at his back, following him, within easy reach. Used to how Anders would swing into action when needed, casting spells as easily and effectively in battle as he ever had. Used to his long silences, his rare words, his occasional tears. Used to looking after him, to making sure that he ate, that he drank enough, that he bathed and wore clean clothes, that his hair was kept trimmed and tied back, his nails clean. There was a time, he knew, when it would have angered him to look after the mage this way; to care for him like a servant. But Anders was no magister; just a sad, broken thing, that might eventually mend, given enough time. No threat to him. Fenris was used, too, to waking up to find the mage stretched out beside him; sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake. He felt terribly self-conscious the first time that he laid out their bedrolls beside each other, knowing the mage would end up there anyway, but no one commented or questioned; they knew.

He rose one night, to take his turn on watch. The mage was sleeping; he didn't disturb him. But a little while later, pacing a slow circle around their camp, he felt the familiar tug of _that way_ from close by, smelled the faint tang of ozone, and knew that Anders had woken and followed after him. He turned and looked at him, wondering suddenly what it was about him that drew the mage. Curious, he led the mage a short distance away from camp, to a rock overlooking it, where he could still keep an eye out for any danger but talk without disturbing the sleep of the others.

He sat, and drew the mage down beside him, studying his face for a while. As familiar to him as his own, now, after so long in such close company. "Why are you here?" he asked softly after a few minutes. "Why do you follow me?"

No answer; but Anders' eyes were focused on him, the mage clearly attentive for once, listening. "What is it?" Fenris asked. "Why do you trust me?"

Anders shrugged, then reached out, taking Fenris' hand in his. He just sat there for a while, holding it lightly in his hands, looking down at it. He lifted a hand after a while, one long finger gently tracing the lyrium lines on the back of it, up the arm, drawing a shiver from the elf.

"I just do," Anders whispered, voice rough and cracked with disuse. And fell silent again, head still lowered.

Fenris remained still for a while. "All right," he finally said, and rose to his feet again, resuming his patrol. Anders followed again, his silent shadow, his ghost. His responsibility.


	4. Dawn's Light

Anders talked, sometimes. Just a word or two, but compared to his previous blank silences it was a change that made pretty much everyone happy. He watched people, paid attention to them, his eyes turning from face to face as conversations went on around him. He _listened_ , even if he almost never spoke, and if someone asked him to do something – pass the salt, hold this for a moment, come for a walk with us – he usually did it. Silently, still mostly withdrawn into himself, but at least _there_ and aware. No longer a ghost.

He still spent most of his time trailing Fenris, but that had become so much his place now that Fenris thought it would be strange to turn his head and _not_ see the mage right there. Strange to go into battle without that sudden nearby eruption of magic. Strange to not have that constant little _this way_ tug on his senses, that whiff of ozone scent that wasn't really a smell at all, and had nothing to do with his nose. The few times when they were briefly separated for one reason or another, it bothered him a little, a nagging feeling of lack, and then relief when Anders reappeared, the mage moving back into his habitual position at Fenris' side.

He woke early one morning, to find Anders out of his own bed again – an increasingly rare occurrence since the mage had regained more awareness of himself and those around him. Anders had his head resting on folded arms on the edge of Fenris' bed, snoring softly, his legs curled up loosely beneath him. It couldn't have been a particularly comfortable position, his bare legs poking out from under the hem of his nightshirt, knobbly knees and bare toes pressed against the cold stone floor where they overhung the edges of the rag-rug beside the bed.

Fenris sat up, and shook the mage's shoulder. Anders started awake, looking around with a frightened expression on his face for a moment before recognizing where he was. "Go back to bed, Anders," Fenris said quietly.

The mage nodded, and pushed himself to his feet, stumbling back across the narrow space between their beds before sitting down heavily on his own. He didn't get into it, but instead sat slumped on the edge, face buried in his hands, elbows resting on knees. Something was clearly bothering him, though Fenris was hesitant to ask what.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked after a while. Anders looked up, then nodded. "All right. Get dressed; it's cold out."

They both dressed, in layers of warm clothing, with heavy cloaks over top, then Fenris led the way out of their room and through the darkened, silent hallways, up to the castle battlements. It was even colder there, the stones dusted with snow, a few patches of ice visible here and there in the dim grey pre-dawn light. There was a slight breeze, just enough to make the skin of his face tingle, and make him feel very thankful for the fur-lined cloak and gloves he'd been supplied with. The pair of them walked slowly around the heights of the castle, around to the eastern side, where Fenris finally stopped, sitting down on a bench from which, he knew, there'd be a good view of the dawn sky. Though as overcast as the sky was, he doubted there'd be much in the way of a sunrise.

Anders sat down beside him, gloved hands braced on his knees, looking to the east as well. For a long time they just sat there silently, watching the clouds lighten, watching the world slowly begin to acquire colours; going from dark grey to lighter, then to blues and purples, the first shades of dawn.

Fenris watched Anders more than he watched the clouds. The mage's face was very still; not the empty blankness it had been for so long after he'd first rescued him, but calm. Waiting. Accepting whatever happened to him, or around him, as if it was all things he had no control over, no ability to interfere or change.

He found himself remembering his time among the Fog Warriors, far to the north in distant Seheron. How panicked he'd been at first, finding himself left behind and wounded, his master – the centre of his existence, back then – gone away without him. Abandoned. He'd wanted to die – _expected_ to, when the rebels found him. And instead one of them had saved his life, bandaging his wounds, bringing him back to their encampment deep in the jungle. He'd taken the deeply confused elf in and fed him, looked after him. Given him a home; given him a taste of freedom, of life without a master. Fenris had asked why, once, just a few days before Danarius had returned and reclaimed his service with bloodshed and violence and pain.

"I saved you," the man had told him, shrugging, as if the answer was obvious. "I'm responsible for you now; I owe it to you to look after you."

He hadn't understood, back then; surely it should be the other way around? That he owed his rescuer?

But now, looking at Anders... it made sense. If he hadn't intervened in Anders' life, hadn't saved him, had left him to the templars... Anders would be dead now, or tranquil. Gone, in either case, his broken existence ended, his fears and worries and needs all at an end. But he _had_ saved Anders, and by doing so, accepted the responsibility to see that he was looked after, cared for, clothed and fed. Because really saving him took _more_ than just taking him away from the templars; it took looking after him until he was finally able to look after himself, to stand on his own without help. Saving him over and over again, day after day, in tiny increments, in little steps forward and back again.

It had been his choice to save Anders. Now, he wondered if Anders would have chosen to be saved, had he been capable of the choice, or whether he would have preferred to die. But it was not a question he could ask the mage, no more than he could bring himself to ask what had happened to Anders and Hawke. Whatever had occurred, it had clearly been ugly; ugly enough to break the mage, when little else in his life had ever succeeded at doing so. The horrors Fenris imagined in his head were bad enough; he had no need to learn which, if any, of them were closest to the truth.

It was possible, too, that Anders might not even be capable of remembering what had happened now; Fenris had seen that happen sometimes in Tevinter, when slaves were badly broken by some particularly traumatic event. Some of them went mad, and some simply... forgot. The mind protecting itself, as much as it could. Witness himself, for that matter, unable to really remember anything prior to the incredible pain of his lyrium markings being etched into his very skin. No. Better not to ask; to just give Anders space and time, and a place where he hopefully felt safe, and maybe, perhaps, in time, he'd recover enough to not need saving any more.

Even if he ever did recover, Fenris doubted he'd be anything like the man he'd been in the past; that man was dead, beyond recovery, as surely as Fenris' own younger self was. Someone that Fenris once had been; someone he could never be again, too much pain and too much time between that boy and himself. So with Anders as well, he guessed; no going back to what, to who, he had been before.

Anders shifted position, still watching the sky, the clouds all orange and yellow now, brightening to the bright white-grey of another overcast winter day. His hand closed on Fenris' hand, rather to the elf's surprise; seeking comfort, perhaps. He didn't draw away, but instead remained still, watching the sunrise with the mage.

Another day dawning, for both of them.


	5. In Darkness, Revelation

Waking up to Anders _not_ being there was worrisome. Not just not in their room, but not within reach of Fenris' Grey Warden senses either; he hadn't just stepped down the hallway to use the garderobe, he wasn't in the bathing chambers at the end of the hall, he wasn't anywhere that Fenris could feel in that extra sense.

He rose to his feet, not even bothering to dress, just grabbed his weapon and hurried out of the room to the silent hallway, dark apart from the night candle burning at the far end of the hall, near the top of the stairs. He padded that way, bare feet almost silent on the carpeted stone floor. Up... or down?

Down, he decided after a moment, on no more evidence than him thinking that if Anders had gone up, he'd likely still be in reach of Fenris' senses. So down he went, like a ghost himself, silent and watchful, pausing at intervals to try and sense the mage's presence. It was not until he'd reached the ground floor that he got the faintest hint of a _that way_ feeling and a whiff of ozone. Somewhere even further down, and to the west.

He had descended to the cellars under the castle, and was searching the west wall for some further route in the direction of the pull, when he felt a much closer _that way_ tug, and turned to find the Warden-Commander and his elven friend watching him curiously; the Warden-Commander smelling, to his enhanced senses, like cedar oil, or perhaps lemon, while his friend had no presence in Fenris' warden-sense at all, not being one of them other than by his association with the Commander.

"What are you looking for down here, Fenris?" Aedan asked, looking at him curiously. "And in your nightshirt, no less."

"Anders. I woke and he was gone... he's somewhere this way," Fenris explained, setting his hand on the wall, then turning to frown at it in perplexity. "But there's no way through. I don't understand."

"Ah. The basements... they're not accessed from here. Go put on some proper clothes and meet me at the front entrance – I'll take you down."

"Thank you," Fenris said, and hurried back upstairs, not liking it at all when he moved out of range to sense Anders again. He quickly pulled off his nightshirt and yanked on his armour, and rushed back downstairs.

Aedan and Zevran were waiting for him, along with Nathaniel, the archer adjusting the fit of his archery glove as Fenris entered, speaking quietly to the other two. They all turned to look at him as he entered. It took him a moment to understand the amused looks they were each giving him; in his hurry, he'd grabbed his old armour, not his warden blues. He flushed, but decided it was best to ignore it; he certainly didn't plan to go back upstairs and change again.

"This way," Aedan said, and led the way out of the castle, down the main steps and out through the portcullis to the courtyard area. It was dark there, lit by starlight and two pairs of torches, one to either side of the portcullis, and a second pair at the far side of the courtyard, bracketing the main gate. The guards on the gate turned to look their way briefly, but returned their attention to beyond the wall at a hand signal from Aedan.

The Warden-Commander led the way across the courtyard, past a weathered stone statue of Andraste, to a small dingy stone-walled building. He produced a large key from one of his belt pouches, and unlocked the door, opening it to show that the building was merely the top entrance to a staircase leading down into the ground.

"The entrance to the basements," Aedan said, and picked up a lantern from a shelf of them on the wall, lighting it before he started down the stairs, Zevran at his heels. Fenris followed after them, Nathaniel bringing up the rear after taking a second lantern.

"Why is the basement entrance in a separate building?" Fenris asked, puzzled.

"We're not entirely sure," Nathaniel said from behind him. "Though there's some evidence these basements were originally part of a much older structure that once stood here, back in Avvar times. The keep incorporates parts of what's left it, but most of it was razed at some time in the past. The basement entrance ended up as part of a chantry that stood here for a couple of centuries, which was in turn destroyed some fifty-odd years ago – the Howe family crypts are all that's left of it. There's also dungeons further down, a wine cellar, storage cellars..."

"They're very deep cellars," Aedan added. "Deep enough to connect to the Deep Roads, though there's a good solid dwarven barrier door blocking that off now. I didn't like the idea of darkspawn having easy entrance inside the walls, not after they'd already made use of it once to wipe out the Grey Wardens here just before I arrived to take command."

By the time they reached the foot of the first set of stairs, all three wardens could feel Anders, and set off in his direction, Aedan still leading the way, he and Nathaniel being most familiar with the layout down here. It was eery down here, completely dark apart from the glow of their two lanterns. He had thought the cellars would be damp and musty – Hawke's certainly had been – but instead it was dry, and smelled mostly of dust, and a little of the goods stored in the cellars they passed; wine, beer, cheese, old cloth and leather, and well-oiled weapons and armour. Down and down they went, reaching levels that were empty apart from occasional vermin, Anders' footsteps clear here in the thick dust that covered the floor.

Aedan suddenly stopped. "There, just ahead," he said in a whisper. "Fenris, I think you'd better approach him first."

Fenris stepped around Aedan and Zevran, peering ahead down the long hallway they were currently in and saw why Aedan was hesitant to approach the mage himself; Anders didn't have a lantern. Instead his entire body was wreathed in a roaring moil of flames; clearly not real fire, as his nightshirt was unharmed by it, but still a disturbing phenomena to witness. He was sitting on the floor at the far end of the hallway, facing a blank wall, all hunched in on himself, motionless apart from the shaking of his shoulders. Crying, Fenris thought.

He removed his sword, wordlessly handing it to Nathaniel, refused an offered lamp, and walked down the long hallway, his lines slowly lighting up as he drew closer and closer to Anders, reacting to the magic surrounding the mage. He could tell the moment the mage became aware of his approach, his crying stopping, his back and shoulders hunching even further, head tucking lower. The flames surrounded him faded, going from a bonfire-like crackling to just dim licks of flame.

"Anders?" he said quietly, coming to a stop.

Anders' head lifted. He stayed still a long moment, then turned to look at Fenris over his shoulder. His eyes were reddened from crying, his face wet with tears and mucus.

Something about his expression... Fenris swallowed thickly, feeling a lump in his throat. "Anders," he said again, and hurried forward the few steps separating them, dropping to one knee beside the mage and wrapping his arms around him, ignoring the last few flickering flames, which didn't burn his skin but did send some nasty shocks through his lines before they faded at last, leaving his lyrium glow as their only light. "I woke up and you were gone," Fenris said, surprised at how shaky his voice sounded, how shaky he felt.

Anders scooted partway around, his own arms moving to clutch tightly to Fenris in turn, burying his head against Fenris' chest. "I got lost," he said, voice tremulous from crying, sounding disturbingly childlike.

"You certainly did," Fenris said, patting his back awkwardly in what he hoped was a soothing way. "How did you even get all the way down here?"

"I don't know," Anders said. "I was... I was looking for someone..." he trailed off, arms tightening further around Fenris, his whole body trembling with strain.

"Looking for who?" Fenris asked softly when it seemed as if the mage was not going to continue.

"Hawke. Justice. _Anyone_. They're all gone," Anders said, sounding lost and frightened. He squirmed around a little further, rising up on his knees to press himself more tightly against Fenris, his head resting on Fenris' shoulder now, one arm looped around his neck. "But you're here now," he whispered tiredly, breath gusting warm against the side of Fenris' neck, tickling at his ear.

Fenris swallowed thickly. "Yes. I'm here," he agreed. "You're not lost any more."

They knelt there in silence for a couple of minutes, arms still wrapped around each other. Fenris could feel the shivering tension draining from the mage. Felt his own fear over Anders' disappearance subsiding, and was disturbed by it.

He felt Aedan and Nathaniel approaching along the hallway at his back now that Anders had calmed down, and couldn't help comparing the warm feeling of their approach to the much stronger _rightness_ he felt about Anders being near. It was more than just the warmth it made in his Grey Warden senses, the feel of being with those like him, that made him want Anders to be close by, he realized, feeling almost guilty in the realization. More than just feeling responsible for Anders, after having saved him, that had made him feel so frightened by the mage's sudden absence. He shivered as Anders' fingertips brushed lightly against the lines on his throat, feeling the tingle the mage's touch sent through his markings, disturbed by the surge of emotions it caused, almost dizzy with his conflicting wants and fears.

"Fenris? How is he?' Aedan asked when he and the others were still a few steps away.

"He's all right," Fenris said, then reluctantly loosened his grip on the mage, rising to his feet and tugging on Anders, urging him to his feet as well. "He just got lost for a little while."

Nathaniel frowned. "I'll say. How'd he even get down here? This is the wrong side of a locked door."

"I don't know," Fenris said. "Anders? Do you remember how you got here?" he asked quietly, looking questioningly at the mage. He flushed slightly, realizing he had one arm wrapped around Anders' waist, partially supporting him, and feeling horribly self-conscious about it, as if he was standing here naked in front of all of them, exposed for all to see.

Anders, he was surprised to see, was looking around at the other two wardens and the elf as if he genuinely recognized them, focusing on them, paying real attention to them, more _there_ than he'd been since Fenris had first rescued him.

"Aedan," Anders said, almost wonderingly. "Nathaniel. And... Zevran?"

Zevran grinned, a flash of white teeth against warm caramel skin. "Ah, the little mage is back with us."

Nathaniel snorted. "Not so little. He's taller than you are."

"And taller than you as well, my dark and brooding friend."

Aedan turned and gave the two a look, shutting them up, then turned back the Anders. "Anders. Do you remember how you got down here?" he asked.

Anders straightened up, taking a half-step away from Fenris, and turned in a slow circle, looking at the stone walls and ceiling. "This is the tunnels down under Vigil's Keep," he said slowly. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," Aedan agreed.

He turned around again, stopping facing Fenris this time. "I was looking for Fenris," he said, almost wonderingly. "I couldn't find him. But then I heard lyrium, singing in the darkness... I thought it might be him. But he wasn't here either."

"Huh," Nathaniel grunted, and strode forward, lifting his lantern and looking closely at the wall, then turned a circle, as Anders had done, studying the stonework.

"What is it?" Aedan asked, looking at the rogue curiously.

"If I'm not totally turned around – we're not far here from the barrier door to the Deep Roads, though there's at least one good thick wall between us and it – we'd need to backtrack a ways in order to take the correct turning to actually reach it. But you remember what we found near the entrance to the Deep Roads, when we first explored down here?"

"Of course!" Aedan said, looking equal parts startled and enlightened. "Lyrium dust. There must be more lyrium still down here somewhere."

"Which still doesn't explain how the mage got past a locked door to get down here," Zevran pointed out.

"Well, seeing as he doesn't seem to remember how he did it, I don't see any point in pursuing it any further right now," Aedan said. "It's too blighted late at night for solving mysteries or digging for lyrium. Come on, back to the Keep everyone."

They set off back for the surface, Aedan and Zevran again in the lead, Nathaniel bringing up the rear, Anders walking silently along at Fenris' side.

Fenris remained silent as well, feeling too unsettled to wish to talk. Disturbed by the realization that he'd come to care for the mage; _really_ care, not just a feeling of responsibility or some twisted enjoyment of his dependency, but... affection. Attachment.

_Liking_.


	6. Blue Dawn

Sending Fenris and Anders along on a patrol to Amaranthine was, in retrospect, perhaps not the wisest of decisions that the Warden-Commander could have made. But he'd assigned Fenris to it, and where Fenris went, so did Anders. The journey to the city itself went without incident; Anders was even relaxed enough to talk a little with those around him, seeming almost entirely normal. He'd improved significantly in the weeks since he'd been lost in the basement, now clearly recognizing those who'd previous known him, and his unnatural dependance on Fenris was fading, though it was clear from his manner that he was happiest when the elf was still somewhere within sight, though if Fenris did need to go off to do something for a while, he was willing to stay where he was as long as one or more of his old friends remained as well.

His personality had definitely changed as a result of his experiences; they all saw it, both Fenris and those who'd known him before. He was shyer, and hesitant, where before he'd seemed almost aggressively confident and certain. There was an occasional brief flash of his previous irreverent manner, but mostly he was a quieter, rather withdrawn person, spending much of his time in quiet thought rather than in conversation or action. Fenris sometimes found himself missing the outspoken, abrasive, overstretched mage he'd known in Kirkwall; he was increasingly certain that Anders might never be that person again, having been too thoroughly broken by whatever his experiences had been. Though that was a subject they all avoided raising with him; Anders never talked about Kirkwall, or of whatever had happened to Hawke and himself _after_ Kirkwall, and the one time Oghren had, in his cups, talked a little too close to the subject, Anders had withdrawn into himself and been silent for two days. He wouldn't – or couldn't – talk about it, and everyone was careful to respect that.

Their entry to the city went smoothly, the gate guards were clearly used to seeing regular patrols of the Grey Wardens coming and going, and Nathaniel and most of his group were well-known to them already. Fenris looked around with interest as they entered the city proper, seeing everywhere signs of the rebuilding that had gone on since the year after the Blight year, when much of the city had been damaged in a ferocious battle against a large force of darkspawn.

It seemed a reasonably nice place, and surprisingly clean, without the stench of rotting fish guts and drying seaweed that he normally associated with sea ports. Very little stenches of other description as well, it seemed, the Warden-Commander having instituted some fairly strict laws against the dumping of chamberpots in the street, among other things. Even the local market smelled clean, without the lingering stench of rotting fruit rinds and other garbage that usually hung over such places in an unsavoury miasma. Fenris found himself eyeing a display of imported fruit and salivating at the thought of buying himself a treat of fresh figs or dried dates, or perhaps an orange, all fruit he hadn't tasted since before departing Kirkwall.

The first inkling of possible trouble Fenris had was when Anders gasped and his hand closed on Fenris' left arm, fingers tightening with a bruising grip. Fenris looked sharply at him, wondering what had disturbed the mage. Anders' eyes were huge, his expression frightened, as he stared down the street in front of the group of wardens. The source of his fear was obvious as soon as Fenris looked that way; a group of templars walking along the stall-lined street toward them.

"Nathaniel," he said, sharply, even as he stopped moving. "Trouble."

Nathaniel looked around, and quickly made the same connection as Fenris had. "Damnation. All right, about face everyone, we're going the long way around today."

Getting Anders to face the other way turned out to be difficult; he was frozen and shaking, his movements uncoordinated. And he clearly didn't like having his back to the templars, craning his face around to look back over his shoulder at the templars once they did manage to get him turned around. The wardens got him into motion, Nathaniel and Sigrun tugging on his arms while Fenris crowded up behind him, the other two recruits with them closing in to either side of him, but by then the templars were close – close enough to take note of Anders' pale face and obvious fear of them, if nothing else, and the staff slung across his back was rather a giveaway as well.

The leader of the trio moved a few steps forward, one hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. "Halt!" he called out, voice reverberating within his bucket-shaped helmet. "You there – stop!"

Nathaniel let out a low curse, and swung around the group to stand between them and the templars, legs spread and hands resting on hips, chin out belligerently. "Templars have no authority over Grey Wardens," he snapped out.

"That man is a mage," the templar pointed out. "I must ask to see his travel papers."

"He's a Grey Warden; you have no authority to stop him, or us, nor do Grey Warden mages carry any travel papers," Nathaniel said obstinately.

Fenris could feel Anders' trembling getting worse, and felt the sensation in his lyrium lines that meant the mage was on the edge of casting. " _No_ ," he said quietly, wrapping his arms around the mage from behind, pinning his arms to his sides so he couldn't reach for his staff, holding him still. "No magic, Anders."

Sigrun had turned around as well now, watching the templars with a wary expression on her face. She had her good right hand resting on the head of the axe at her belt, the tip of her hook twisted into Anders' left sleeve, the hook turned sideways against his arm so that she wouldn't scratch or cut him if he moved suddenly, but still helping to hold him still. The other two wardens were splitting their attention between the templars and Anders, looking as if they weren't quite sure which was the real danger.

Nathaniel was still arguing with the templars. "Look, if you have an issue with a Grey Warden mage, you take it through channels, which means getting your Knight-Commander to contact our Warden-Commander about it. Right now you're interfering with _my_ Grey Warden mage, and I need you to _back off._ "

The last words were almost shouted, occasioning a sudden silence and a lot of staring from others on the street. And a cowed silence from the templars as well, clearly not used to having someone speak back to them so authoritatively.

"What's going on here?" another voice suddenly asked. Fenris glanced over his shoulder and saw that a fourth templar had appeared from somewhere. A Knight-Captain, considerably higher rank than the other three, who hastily drew themselves upright and tapped fists to breastplates in salute.

"Ahhh, Warden Howe... I see you've met our latest recruits. Not giving you any trouble, I hope?" he asked. Fenris had to bite his lip to keep from smiling; not that the situation was in any way amusing, but the man's tone of voice made it so clear that he was sure his templars _were_ causing trouble, and that he was annoyed by it.

"A little. Call off your dogs, Ser Bryant," Nathaniel growled.

A few sharp orders and the three templars marched off the way they'd come. "Sorry about that, Nate. You know what recruits can be like – more enthusiasm than sensibility. I see you have a few new recruits of your own," Ser Bryant said quietly, glancing curiosity at both Anders and Fenris and largely ignoring the other two recruits.

"Thanks, Bry... I'll have to introduce you another time," Nathaniel said, giving the still visibly upset Anders a pointed look.

"I can see you have your hands full. See you at the Crown and Lion later?"

"Sure. Thanks," Nathaniel said. Ser Bryant lifted a hand and left.

Anders was still tense, and visibly upset, too shaken to even speak. "This way," Nathaniel said, and led the group of them down a crooked side-street, one that dead-ended in a narrow, darkened alley, overhung by the surrounding buildings and well out of sight of anyone.

"Get him calmed down," Nate told Fenris, then turned away to quietly praise the other pair of recruits for standing their ground.

Fenris got Anders seated on a crate and crouched down beside him. It surprised him how angry he felt about the templar's interference, how protective he felt about Anders. Had the templars persisted, had they not been called off, he knew he would have been willing to kill them rather then letting them do anything to the mage -rather an about-face from what his feelings would have been back in Kirkwall, where it would only have been his certainty that Hawke would wish the mage protected that would have led him to take any action. But now... it infuriated him to see Anders reduced to shaken silence again after all his recent good progress.

He cautiously put his hand on Anders' arm, squeezing it gently. Anders turned his head a little to look at him; at least he was not blanked out again, Fenris was relieved to see. He had no idea what to say, what he might ask, that might not worsen the situation further. So he just crouched there, hand on Anders' arm, watching the mage and waiting. After a few minutes Anders suddenly drew a deep shuddering breath, then released it. His posture went from unnaturally tense to almost relaxed, head and shoulders dropping slightly, eyes half-closed.

"Anders?" Fenris said softly, sure the worst of the crisis was over.

Anders lifted his head slightly, meeting the elf's eyes again. "Fenris," he said, equally quietly.

Fenris sighed, feeling himself relax slightly too. "Ready to go on?" he asked.

Anders nodded, and the two rose to their feet. Nathaniel turned to them, running an evaluating eye over Anders. Anders looked around, looking at all of them, each in turn. "Thank you," he said, voice a little hoarse.

Nathaniel smiled, and reached out to clap his hand to Anders' shoulder. "You're a Grey Warden," he said. "And we always protect our own. The oath is more than just pretty-sounding words. It doesn't matter if we've argued in the past, or even that you stopped wearing the blue and grey for a while; you can never stop being a Grey Warden, and we will always be your brothers and sisters. You're _ours_."

That brought a slight – a very slight – smile to Anders' lips. He nodded, then the group of them moved out again, continuing on to the Grey Warden barracks.

It was not the end of the incident, of course; Fenris woke that night, some time before dawn, unsure at first of what had disturbed him until he heard a quiet snuffling sound from the other bed. Anders, crying and trying not to disturb him with the sound.

He lay where he was for a while, unsure of what to do, briefly tempted to pretend he'd heard nothing and go back to sleep. He'd cried himself to sleep often enough over the years, when life and his hard-won freedom-that-was-not- _freedom_ got to be too much for him. But he couldn't stop thinking of how often he'd wished that there was someone there with him who _understood_ , someone to offer him even the meagerest shred of comfort. Finally he sighed, rolled over and rose to his feet, and took the few steps that separated their beds. Anders froze, falling silent, as Fenris sat down on the edge of his bed. He lay down, on top of the covers, rolling over against Anders' back, and draped an arm over him.

"You're safe," Fenris whispered. "I'm here."


	7. Awakening

"He seems much better lately," Nathaniel said quietly to Fenris as the two worked on maintaining their weapons, watching Anders standing at the far side of the room, listening to Sigrun talking, both of them smiling. "Almost his old self again."

Fenris grunted and nodded. The mage had changed a lot since their patrol to Amaranthine; as if, after stirring restlessly for some time, he had finally awoken from a long sleep. He had become much more independent of Fenris, of everyone really; he no longer seemed to have any fear about being on his own, at least within the safety of the Keep. He had even taken over an empty workroom and set up a proper stillroom, where he spent time each day making potions and salves, brewing up medicines, and rolling up bandages against future need, of well-boiled old cloth sprinkled with a little oil of thyme.

He was still much quieter than he'd been in the past. He never talked about what had happened to him in his years between leaving Vigil's Keep and returning, but he would talk, and not just in response to direct questions. He participated in conversations, shyly some times, with more confidence at others. When he'd had enough he'd drift away again, mentally or physically, and at least a few times each day he'd seek out Fenris and just remain near him for a while.

Fenris knew that he had changed too; no longer was it just a mild sense of rightness when Anders rejoined him. There was always a feeling of happiness to see the mage again, of warm feeling at being near him. He found himself reaching out occasionally, when their parting had been particularly long, touching hand to arm or shoulder, unexpectedly charmed by the rare shy smile it sometimes won from the mage.

He was surprised one day when he found out just how much they both had changed. They had returned from a patrol through the Wending Wood, tired and sweating and sore, Fenris itching abominably from where small biting flies had managed to reach bare flesh. Anders had no such problem; the shielding magic he habitually cast around himself kept such minor nuisances from ever reaching him.

"I'm taking a bath," Fenris told the mage, and headed off down the hallway to the bathing chamber. He had it to himself, no one else on their stretch of hallway having been on that same patrol. He'd filled one of the tubs, stripped down, and was rinsing off the worst of the grime by pouring bucketfuls of cold water over himself when the door opened and the mage entered the room.

"For the itching," Anders said, holding up a paper for him to see before sprinkling it into the bath, then started a second tub filling and began removing his own clothing.

Fenris turned away to give the mage some privacy. He'd seen glimpses of Anders' skin often enough – seen him entirely nude more than once – to know just how much scarring the robes hid. He wondered if that was part of why his old hatred of the mage had faded away; the inescapable knowledge that at some point in his life, Anders had suffered treatment almost as bad as any slave he'd ever known. And only qualified by "almost" as he'd been able to survive the abuse; he had not been tortured to death, as Fenris had more than once seen happen to slaves with particularly cruel masters. Only once he heard Anders pouring water over himself in preparation to get into the bath did he turn and hastily climb into his own tub, keeping his eyes averted.

Whatever it was Anders had added to the water had turned it milky white, but it also worked; Fenris sighed in relief and sank deeper into the tub, closing his eyes and just enjoying the lack of itchiness and the relaxing effect of the hot water. He could hear Anders clambering into his own tub, then the splashing sounds of him washing, accompanied by the scent of soap. After a while he opened his eyes, sat up, and began scrubbing himself clean as well.

Anders got out of the bath first, heaving himself up out of the water and splashing water everywhere, then grabbing up a towel and beginning to briskly dry himself off. Fenris finished shortly afterwards, while Anders was busy towelling his hair dry, and rose from his own bath with considerably more decorum, the floor by his tub only receiving drips of water, not being sloshed all over. He was edging past the mage to get a towel for himself when his foot came down on an area of stone that was worn smooth and covered in soapy water; treacherous footing, he realized too late, as his foot skidded out from underneath him. He yelped and flailed his arms, almost catching his balance and then went over backwards. The back of his head slammed into something, and everything went dark.

He woke with a terrible headache to find himself sprawled naked on the floor, held half-in and half-out of an equally naked Anders' lap. "Maker! My _head_ ," he groaned, and reached up to feel the back of his head. He didn't feel any injury there, not even so much as a lump, but his fingers came away wet with more than just bathwater, and judging by how pale and shaken Anders look, there had certainly been an injury of some kind. "What happened?" he asked.

"You f-f-fell," Anders stuttered, eyes wide. "You hit your head on the edge of the tub. I... I thought you were _dead_ for a moment," Anders exclaimed, then hugged him tightly, burying his head against Fenris' shoulder and just shuddering with after-reaction. Fenris found himself feeling peculiarly touched by how upset Anders clearly was over the dangerous accident.

It took several minutes to calm him down again, by which time the worst of Fenris' headache was receding. He needed Anders' help to get back to his feet, his own legs feeling decidedly shaky as well, and was glad of the mage's support as he leaned over the tub to wash away the blood matting his hair and streaking his shoulders. He was only just realizing he was going to need help drying off when Anders snatched a couple of towels off the shelf, handed him one, then knelt down and began wiping his legs and feet dry.

Fenris flushed in embarrassment, hastily towelled the worst of the moisture from what he could reach without bending over, and wrapped the towel around his waist, keeping his eyes carefully off of the naked man at his feet. Thankfully Anders noticed his own nudity without Fenris having to point it out, and wrapped a towel around his hips as well before turning away to drain the two tubs they'd used and make some effort to clean up the mess they'd made. That done, Anders helped Fenris back to their room. Fenris sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, suddenly feeling very tired, and Anders handed him his nightshirt.

"I'll get our things," Anders said, and hurried out again, presumably to fetch the dirty clothing they'd left behind in the bathroom. Fenris had managed to struggle into the nightshirt by the time he returned. Anders quickly sorted their clothing, hanging up Fenris' armour on its stand, and putting everything else in their laundry baskets for the keep staff to deal with later. He turned his back and quickly pulled on his own nightshirt as well, then came over and stood by Fenris' bed, looking nervously down at the elf. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Sore and tired," Fenris told him.

"No ringing in your ears or blurred vision or anything like that?"

"No, just a headache, but it's fading now."

Anders nodded. "Good. Blows to the head can be tricky. You need to stay awake for a while until I'm sure you're going to be okay."

"That's not going to be fun, I'm tired as it is – we did a lot of walking today."

Anders nodded again. "You can lie down, but you need to stay awake. Keep talking to me," he added.

Fenris nodded, and got into bed. Anders sat down on the edge of it, watching him. "Talk about what?" he asked.

Anders shrugged. "Anything. Just stay awake."

Fenris sighed, then did so, talking about what he'd done after leaving Kirkwall – travelling with Isabela, visiting a few places he'd only ever heard of in stories, eventually ending up roaming around in southern Orlais for a while. He carefully avoiding any mention of Kirkwall itself, or of his eventually tripping over Anders in Lydes. After that he talked for a while about his time among the Fog Warriors of Seheron.

Anders just listened quietly while he talked. It was well after dark, both of them yawning frequently, before the mage finally interrupted. "How are you feeling now?"

"Exhausted. Still a little headachey."

"No dizziness or nausea or anything?"

"No."

Anders smiled. "Good. You can sleep now."

"Good," Fenris said, and rolled over in bed. To his surprise Anders moved to lie down beside him, rather then going to his own bed. "What...?"

"I'm still worried," Anders admitted, voice just the tiniest bit shaky. "I'd rather be close, in case you need any further healing."

"All right," Fenris agreed, and yawned. "Get in bed, then – it's going to be a cold night."

There was a brief silence, then Anders moved, joining him under the covers. As tired as he was, Fenris was already falling asleep even as the mage gingerly curled up back-to-back with him.

He woke in the grey pre-dawn. At some point during the night they'd both turned over, Anders onto his back, Fenris onto his other side, so that rather than being back-to-back he was lying pressed up against Anders, one arm draped over him. One of Anders' arms was draped along his back, the other lay along and partially over Fenris' own, hand wrapped loosely around his forearm just below the elbow. Fenris tensed for a moment, and tried to extricate himself. Anders made a sleepy sound, rolling toward him and tugging him closer, arm moving to drape over his waist. The mage nuzzled into his hair, and sighed, somehow managing to make a simple sigh sound pleased. Fenris froze again, unsure of how to deal with this.

Then Anders' moved again, shifting one leg, lifting it to hook over Fenris' lower leg. Fenris flushed as the change in position rolled the mage ever further toward him, and he became aware of a certain hardness against his thigh. To his embarrassment, his own cock twitched in interest as soon as he identified the source of the pressure.

"Anders," he said, thinking it best to wake the mage and get them separated. Anders made another unintelligible sound, then tensed and stretched, catlike, chin tucking down toward his chest, legs going stiff with feet pointed straight. And arched his back, shoulders and head moving back while his hips pressed forward in a way which ground his groin even more firmly against Fenris. Fenris flushed with a mix of arousal and embarrassment. "Anders!" he said again, more sharply.

Anders froze, eyes snapping open, suddenly awake and aware. He stared for a moment at Fenris, then glanced downwards and suddenly blushed, hastily releasing the elf and rolling over. "Sorry," he mumbled, and came to a stop sitting hunched on the edge of the bed, back to Fenris, arms wrapped around himself with back and shoulders hunched.

Fenris bit his lip, curling in on himself as well and wishing his own reaction would subside faster, then after a moment reached out and touched Anders' back. "It's okay," he said quietly.

Anders looked back over his shoulder at him, then sighed, and straightened up a little. "Sorry," he said again.

Fenris found himself smiling. "No you're not," he said.

Anders looked away, then looked back again. And smiled, just the merest quirk of one corner of his mouth. "No, I'm not," he agreed quietly.

There was a very long silence, a stillness, as they both remained as they were, watching each other. Then Fenris slowly uncurled, sitting up, and Anders turned, moving closer to him. It was Anders that leaned in closer, starting the first kiss. It was Fenris who was the first to open his mouth, deepening the kisses. Which reached to touch the other first – neither could have said.

It seemed both inevitable and logical for kisses to become more heated, for hands to roam further afield. At some point Anders helped Fenris to tug off his nightshirt. Fenris wasn't even aware his lines were glowing until he saw the blue-white light of them reflected in Anders' eyes as he lay back down on the bed. Anders reached out, hand hesitating just shy of Fenris' stomach.

"It's all right," Fenris said, giving permission, and Anders' hand closed the last bit of distance, fingertips coming to rest against the lines carved into his flesh. The mage traced them, gently, an absorbed, almost wondering look on his face, watching as the glow of them brightened where his hand touched them, faded as he moved it elsewhere. Fenris shivered, then closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation; the long slow stroking touches, being touched so carefully, so gently, as if he was something precious and breakable.

Anders shifted after a while. Fenris opened his eyes again, watching as the mage peeled off his own nightshirt and then moved to straddle Fenris' legs. He leaned forward and down, hands braced to either side of Fenris' shoulders, and kissed him, his hair falling loosely to veil their face. Fenris lifted his own hands, carefully settling them against either side of Anders' waist, feeling the shift and stretch of the muscles there as Anders moved, kissing Fenris' lips, licking tentatively at the marks on Fenris' chin, the lowering his head even further to suck and bite at Fenris's neck, nip at his earlobe, then nose into his hair, drawing in a deep inhale.

"You smell good," Anders said, voice thick and a little muzzy.

Fenris smiled, eyes closed again and head tilted back, enjoying the attentions. "You smell like ozone," he said.

Anders snorted, then carefully sifted position again, lowering himself further, more of his weight on Fenris, pressing him back into the mattress. It might have felt threatening, as if he was trapped beneath the mage, but it didn't. It felt comforting instead, like the weight of a heavy quilt draped warmly over him, especially with Anders putting so much attention into seeking out what pleased Fenris, not just what pleased himself.

There was more kissing and touching, and then the startling-close shock of magic buzzing in his lines as Anders worked a spell that summoned a handful of slippery grease. Then more touching, ticklish and more than a little intriguing as the mage sat back long enough to spread it over both of them, stomach and upper thighs and erections, before lying down on him again. And then the slide of flesh against flesh, the two of them rocking together, grunting and gasping as they moved in the second-oldest of rhythms, starting slow and then gradually moving with increasing speed and vigour.

Anders cried out first, still thrusting against Fenris as his seed spattered out across the elf's stomach. Fenris moved, as the mage slowed, flipping him over on his back and moving to kneel between his legs, his own hips still pumping energetically as he rutted against Anders a short while longer, before crying out as he came as well.

He collapsed on top of him, afterwards, ignoring the damp mess smeared between them. They wrapped they arms around as much of each other as they could, and just clung together for a while, Fenris' head resting on Anders' chest.

He realized, after a while, that the mage was crying. Silently, tears welling from open eyes as he stared up at the ceiling, blinking occasionally. Concerned, Fenris pushed himself partway upright again. "Are you okay?" he asked worriedly.

Anders shrugged. "Not entirely. Not yet," he said, then drew a deep breath, and released it, and met Fenris' eyes. A tremulous smile curved his lips. "But I will be," he said.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Stronger Woman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/489511) by [Serindrana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana)




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